Facebook reveals plan to get Gen Z users back

Despite having been created by college students, Facebook is now the go-to social media app for older generations. But the platform now wants to change this and become more appealing to Gen Z.

For the past decade, Facebook has become known as the “boomer and Gen X” social media platform, as the younger Millenials and Gen Z tend to prefer apps like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.

But now, Facebook has revealed their plans to change this and make their own platform more desirable for younger users.

At an event in New York City on May 31, 2024, Facebook execs presented their strategy for ensuring the “next 20 years” of Facebook, which included how they were planning to make themself more desirable to the younger generations, Mashable reported.

Facebook President Tom Alison said: “We’re still for everyone, but we also recognize that in order to stay relevant, we have to build for… Gen Z.”

He continued: “We noticed… this is the time in [Gen Z’s] life when they start making a lot of huge transitions: moving, going to college, getting their first job, getting their first apartment, finding a romantic partner… They want a way to explore their new interests and they want to find real people and real experts who share them. And that’s where we think Facebook comes in.”

Alison then went on to explain how Facebook could be beneficial to Gen Z, whether it’s finding great deals on furniture on Marketplace, exploring their interests with Reels and in Groups, connecting with their local communities and small businesses, or finding someone they like on Facebook Dating.

He also revealed that they’ve updated their Reels and Feed ranking technologies to improve the recommendations they send users. They are also hoping to grow the Facebook Reels feature, just like Instagram and YouTube have since the rise of TikTok.

In a separate blog post outlining the strategy, Facebook said it hoped to “have the world’s best recommendation technology” by 2026 and that it was introducing updates to its video recommendation algorithm that will deliver more clips “more effectively” to user feeds.

They also claimed that Meta’s recent focus on AI would help the platform appeal to Gen Z thanks to the AI features being “fun, engaging, and helpful.”